CHENEY TO SHOOT CAUCASIAN TROUBLES
RIA Novosti
16:51 | 03/ 09/ 2008
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) –
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney started a Caucasian-Ukrainian tour
yesterday. His challenging task is to promise weapons to Georgia and
NATO membership to Ukraine, and to convince Azerbaijan to accept the
Nabucco pipeline project.
He will talk with the Azerbaijani president in Baku on September 2 and
3, reaffirm American support for the Georgian president on September 4,
and later in the day go to Ukraine.
The weeklong trip was planned long ago. In fact, Cheney intended to
stop over in Tbilisi and Baku on his way to the Ambrosetti Forum,
Italy’s own annual mini-Davos set next to Lake Como. Kiev was added
to his itinerary at the last moment.
Although visits to Azerbaijan and Georgia were planned long before
the conflict over South Ossetia erupted, they have since acquired
special meaning. Cheney’s trip to the Caucasus and Ukraine is
possibly the last attempt by the Bush Administration to set up a
Black Sea-Caucasian cordon on Russia’s southern border as a gift to
the next administration.
Cheney seldom goes abroad without a bulky portfolio of proposals and/or
warnings to U.S. allies, potential allies, or countries unenlightened
about the benefits of friendship with Washington.
Richard Bruce Cheney, 67, is a politician with terrific punch and
the main author of the current U.S. foreign and military policies
(perhaps better described as military policy with a minor diplomatic
slant). Cheney is a man in his own league and the main ideologist of
the neoconservative policy of the Republican administration and the
country as a whole.
He is the epitome of American conservatism, having served as chief
of staff under President Gerald Ford, defense minister for President
George Bush Sr. and vice president of President George Bush Jr.
In 1997, Cheney teamed up with Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol
and others to establish the Project for the New American Century, a
neoconservative U.S. think tank whose self-stated goal is to "promote
American global leadership." The project’s ideas have been implanted
in all the foreign policy programs of the Bush Administration.
Cheney says his foreign policy teacher Bradford Wesferfield, a
Yale political scientist, helped to shape his hard-line approach to
foreign policy, but an article in The Nation in 2004 reported that
Dr. Westerfield came to regret the hard-nosed lessons Mr. Cheney said
he had learned.
Dr. Westerfield characterized the current Bush Administration as
overly confrontational, calling that "precisely the wrong approach."
Cheney orchestrated the U.S. invasion of Panama, Operation Desert
Storm in the Middle East, the anti-Iraqi policy and, some say,
the molding of Mikheil Saakashvili, described as the United States’
main ally in the Caucasus.
Wherever Cheney goes, he always makes clear what the U.S. wants and how
best to fulfill its wishes and, by implication, avoid the unpleasant
consequences of non-compliance.
In Tbilisi, he will offer "friend Michael" U.S. support and rearmament
of the Georgian army with U.S.-made weapons.
In Kiev, he will assure President Viktor Yushchenko that Ukraine will
definitely enter NATO, which is not quite true, of course, but will
help Cheney, who has always seen military ties as the main instrument
of U.S. foreign policy, to promote military cooperation with Ukraine.
His task in Baku will be more difficult. He must cajole President
Ilkham Aliyev into approving the Nabucco gas pipeline, which Baku,
along with much of Europe, is coming to view with growing mistrust.
The nearly 2,000-mile pipeline, which the United States has been
advocating, would connect Azerbaijan with Central Europe. It will run
across Georgia (bypassing Armenia and Russia) towards Erzurum in Turkey
and on to Austria’s Baumgarten via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.
In fact, there are plans to add a trans-Caspian extension to Nabucco,
to pump gas from Turkmenistan to Europe.
Nabucco has already had its share of problems. The geopolitical
rationale for the project – to bypass Russia – has increased spending
from $3 billion to $4.9 billion, and the cost now stands at $7.9
billion. Construction should begin in 2010 and the pipeline is to
come on stream in 2013.
To turn a profit, the pipeline should annually pump 30 billion cubic
meters (1.06 trillion cu f) of gas. Azerbaijan can supply only 8
billion, and that only after it commissions the second phase of the
Shah Deniz deposit in the Caspian Sea.
So, there is not enough gas for the pipe, which will make its gas
very expensive indeed.
The Caucasian conflict has scared the European gas and energy block,
which thinks in cubic meters or feet. The European and Azerbaijani
energy and gas processing companies are alarmed at the prospect of the
pipe being controlled by such an unbalanced politician as Saakashvili.
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) has started
sending oil to Europe bypassing Georgia. This year, it will pump
between 300,000 tons (2.2 million bbl) and 400,000 tons (2.9 million
bbl) of crude, initially delivered along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
pipeline, through the Baku-Novorossiisk pipe. It made the decision
on August 7, when Georgia started bombing South Ossetia’s capital,
Tskhinvali.
Azerbaijan is also negotiating the transit of additional gas to Europe
via Russia.
"Baku’s new interest [in Russia] may stem from a desire to protect
the relationship with Moscow, or a sense that Nabucco is less likely
than ever to materialize," writes the Eurasia Group, British energy
consultants who offer analysis on developments in Russia and the CIS,
Central Asia and the Caspian.
Europeans have started talking about the need to involve Russia in the
Nabucco project to make it viable. Russia alone can provide enough gas
to make the pipeline profitable by rerouting its gas from Blue Stream.
Interestingly, Russian energy giant Gazprom holds a 50% stake in
Austria’s Baumgarten, the terminal for the Nabucco pipeline.
"This goes against the whole concept of Nabucco, that it would not
be either Russian or Russian-controlled gas," says Zeyno Baran, an
energy and Central Asian expert at the conservative Hudson Institute
in Washington and the wife of Matthew Bryza, U.S. Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
Mr. Bryza covers the Caucasian region and has been actively lobbying
for Saakashvili. Some even say he was his direct political mentor.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.